Jurors found a Carbon County man not guilty of an alleged 2018 assault on a state narcotics agent.

Brett Rodriguez, 43, of Lansford, was cleared of charges of aggravated assault and simple assault during a trial in Carbon County Court on Thursday.

“I feel like I can start to get my life back a little bit. It’s been an uphill battle to have any normalcy,” Rodriguez said following the verdict.

Rodriguez was charged with attempting to injure a state narcotics agent inside his then-home on White Bear Drive in Summit Hill on Feb. 13, 2018.

The agent was part of a multiagency raid led by the Carbon County Sheriff’s Department, who were not seeking Rodriguez, but two other residents who had warrants.

The not guilty verdict came after less than an hour of deliberation, and less than four hours of testimony during the one-day trial.

It was the second time that the case went to trial, after Judge Joseph J. Matika declared a mistrial when an officer who was testifying referred to Rodriguez’ then-home as a “known drug house.”

During Thursday’s trial, a new jury heard from three officers who took part in the raid, including the alleged victim. Rodriguez testified in his own defense.

The agent, Kirk Schwartz, testified during the trial that Rodriguez tried to elbow him while he had his left hand cuffed. Schwartz said he had handcuffed Rodriguez for safety reasons, because he was verbally hostile toward him and another agent.

He testified that Rodriguez continued to kick and struggle after another officer, then-Jim Thorpe officer Matthew Schwarz, grabbed him and pulled him to the ground.

Rodriguez testified that he didn’t elbow Schwarz, but rather was turning to ask why he was being arrested. He said he was then “suckerpunched” by Schwarz, and awoke on the ground with Schwarz repeatedly punching him in the head.

Rodriguez said he was verbally hostile to Schwartz and another agent, Crystal Adames, because he didn’t know they were police officers. They wore civilian clothes with the exception of their bulletproof vests, which say ‘police.’ Rodriguez said he thought they were bikers until he saw a uniformed officer, then-Summit Hill Police Chief Joseph Fittos, behind them.

Rodriguez said he was punched in the head at least eight times by Schwarz. Rodriguez’ attorney, Matthew J. Mottola, showed jurors a poster-sized version of his client’s mug shot, showing injuries to both sides of his head.

Schwarz, Adames and Fittos all testified that Rodriguez’s injuries were inflicted by himself after he was in custody caused by him banging his own head into a wall and the dividing wall of a police cruiser.

Rodriguez said he served eight months in jail following the incident because the contact with police violated his probation in a previous case. He said he refused to plead guilty and accept probation because he believed he had done nothing wrong.

“Whether I went to jail or they set me free, I said I gotta do it,” he said.

Last year, Rodriguez filed a federal lawsuit against the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, the Jim Thorpe Police Department, and the officers who were involved in the raid. The federal case had been on hold pending the outcome of his criminal trial.